There's Chemistry in the Biology Department - Freewood
by ohcrap-itsactuallymydivision
Summary: To begin with, Ryan had soured at the very idea of having a colleague. But then he met, and consequently fell in love with, Gavin Free, who almost quite literally turned his world upside down.


When Dr Haywood was assigned an assistant, '_colleague_' his mind ruefully corrected, he was immediately irked. He was one of Rooster Teeth Facility's best minds for fuck's sake! He was so close to finishing his biology presentation for Dr Sorola that he could almost _taste_ the raise that he would undoubtedly be awarded with. Dr Burns be damned, he was _not_ going to allow some foreign apprentice come and ruin all his research.

So he continued to keep his head down for the rest of the week and hopefully forget about the entire situation. There wasn't even enough room in the office for a new desk, the English apprentice would have to find somewhere else to keep his shit. Dr Jones and Narvaez would probably be happy to add a third member to their huge office. Why hadn't Burns located this guy to their office?!

Ugh, Ryan was sick of this man and he hadn't even met him yet.

"Haywood, this is Doctor Gavin Free, your new colleague. He's going to be working alongside you so he can get a feel for the type of work and if he does well then we might even sign him on as a permanent employee." Burns addressed Ryan before turning to the younger man next to him and speaking again, informing him of the various important things about the Rooster Teeth Facility. So basically where the break room was and how to work the extremely temperamental coffee machine (Ryan had tried to fix that machine countless times but it still refused to work properly).

Only when Burns stepped aside did Ryan finally get a good look at Dr Free. He was wearing a plain purple and white collared t-shirt and a pair of skinny jeans that made him look like he was eighteen, not in his mid twenties. His light brown hair stuck up in all directions which made Ryan wonder whether he actually brushed it that morning or whether it was like that on purpose. But when Free finally looked at Ryan, he was completely shocked by the stark green eyes that stared at him with curiosity. Then he realised that he had completely missed the entire conversation and they were looking for him for a response.

"Haywood, show Doctor Free to your office and your workroom. Jones and Narvaez's office has been quiet for far too long, it's unnerving." Burns laughed, smiled at both Ryan and Free, _'Gavin, his name is Gavin'_, before tucking his hands in the pockets of his white lab coat and walking off in the direction Ryan knew the lads' office was.

"So, Doctor Haywood… Which way to the office?" Gavin asked, glancing up at Ryan nervously.

_'__Oh shit, he's attractive'_. This wasn't going to end well. Ryan did _not_ work well with distractions. And this man _certainly_ classified as a distraction.

"Just down this hallway, it's not too far." Ryan replied shortly, not delving into any detail or conversation that wasn't necessary. He didn't want to have to associate with Gavin for longer than needed because all he wanted was to be able to get on with his research in peace. The biology presentation was due three weeks from then and he was going to be damned if Gavin was about to distract him from it.

Ryan was going to bury himself in preparing and finalising his presentation. He was going to avoid speaking to Gavin at all costs and he was going to get his work done. The next few weeks were going to be interesting, Ryan could already tell. But there was just no way of telling exactly how interesting they would be.

But in the end, Ryan should have known that Gavin was going to be nothing but a pain in the ass. He wasn't sure how he didn't see it from the beginning! The guy literally couldn't go five minutes without saying something purposefully stupid or poking around with one of Ryan's experiments and insisting he help.

That was exactly how Gavin had wound up as Ryan's lab-rat. Whenever he needed a piece of hair, or a drop of blood, or some form of DNA (or just another coffee), Gavin was always there being moderately useful.

Ryan discovered that Gavin was bearable when he was being told exactly what to do, otherwise he would be a complete and utter distraction and no work would get done at all and Ryan's presentation would be no closer to finished than it was at the beginning of the day. Plus there was the fact that Gavin was literally the messiest motherfucker Ryan had ever met in his life; his desk (that had been squeezed into Ryan's office, with another in his lab) was even messier than Michael and Ray's entire office for Christ's sake!

To summarise Ryan's feelings towards Gavin; he was a mess and Ryan hated him.

Like, _really_ hated him.

And he was absolutely not attractive at all.

Not even a tiny bit.

Ryan was almost in a constant state of _'pissed off at Gavin'_. _Especially_ when the idiot accidentally did something he was unaware of which made Ryan think he was cute.

Eugh, _'cute'_. The motherfucker was a weapon of mass destruction _and_ he just happened to be fucking adorable. He was like the by-product of a dragon and a cat; frustratingly and annoying yet still destructive as ever.

But Ryan was still pissed off at Gavin, no matter how many heartbeats were skipped when he happened to look at the young British scientist in a certain lighting or when he wasn't wearing his lab coat and he looked as attractive and casual as ever, or when he _was_ wearing his lab coat and he looked insanely smart and a little bit sexy as he popped the top few buttons of his shirt.

_Fuck_. This was _exactly_ why Ryan classed him as a distraction.

Anyway, Gavin was only there to observe Ryan and make notes on how the RT Facility worked so he could learn more and help Ryan with his various experiments and, more importantly, his presentation.

It was two weeks later when Ryan was feeling the intense rumble of irritation build up, with no way to stop it or slow it down.

Gavin had lost something (Ryan vaguely remembered him mentioning his lanyard, or maybe it was his keys, Ryan had no clue) and he was rummaging around his cluttered desk, the noise of paper and other items being shuffled around filling the otherwise silent room.

Ryan _wished_ it was silent. He had five days until his assignment was due in for Sorola and Burns, and he still had a long way to go. So instead of talking or busying himself with an experiment or other research, he was trying to complete the presentation. _Trying_ being the key word there. Absolutely no work was getting done with a certain British idiot making an even bigger mess of his desk than it already was, and making a load of noise while he was at it.

Five minutes. Ryan put up with Gavin's incessant scrambling for five more minutes before he broke.

"_Gavin_, will you _please_ stop being so fucking distracting?!" He snapped, clenching his fist and glaring at Gavin who had stopped rummaging around to look at Ryan with a startled expression.

"Ryan, I didn't-"

"Fucking cut it out, Gavin. All you've done lately is piss around, make a mess and distract me. I mean, look at your fucking _desk_! If you can even call it that anymore. It's _ridiculous_!" Ryan was on a roll now, he didn't even think a smack to the back of his head would stop him from telling Gavin exactly how and why he was fucking irritating to Ryan.

"I'm fucking fed up of you purposefully not being helpful, and I'm pissed off that literally the _only_ pants you wear are skinny jeans which leave_nothing_ to the imagination which is so fucking distracting that you don't even know. And I hate how you turn up _barely_ on time and you always do dumb shit to screw up on purpose and it's fucking annoying how you're just _there_ all the time but when you're not, I end up fucking needing you!" By this time, Ryan had slammed the save button on his computer, ensuring the safety of his presentation, before raking his hand through his hair and ranting. He knew he was going to feel bad about this, but _man_ did it feel good to finally say it all.

"I just can't fucking win and it's getting ridiculous!"

"That's how you feel?" Gavin snapped back, almost taking Ryan by surprise for a second there. He'd placed his hands on his hips and he was snarling over at Ryan, an equally irritated expression on his face. But somehow even_ anger_ suited Gavin's attractive features and Ryan had to control himself for a few seconds as he regained a level head before nodding in response to Gavin's question. "Well maybe I'd be less of a nuisance if you actually _gave me something to do_ and _told me how to do it properly_ instead of giving me jobs you'd give an assistant. I'm supposed to be your bloody colleague, not your lab-rat or your slave!"

Ryan took a surprised step back, glad that Gavin was fighting back, but irritated at the situation in general. Like he said, he just couldn't fucking win. "I _do_ tell you how to do things, but perhaps if you were a _grown up man_ and used your fucking _initiative_ for once, maybe we wouldn't be in this mess!"

Gavin huffed irately, a comeback already burning on his tongue. But instead of escalating the argument into a full-blown shouting match, he clenched his fists and stormed out of the room, slamming the door loudly behind himself.

"Fuck me…" Ryan muttered under his breath, pressing his palms on his desk and leaning forwards, letting the tension seep from his body as he relaxed in the calm after the storm.

A few seconds of deafening silence passed before Ryan felt anger pool in his stomach again. Not at Gavin this time, but at himself. He shouldn't have snapped at Gavin, it wasn't his fault that Ryan was a self-righteous bitch and it certainly wasn't Gavin's fault that Ryan always treated him like a servant more than a colleague, an _equal_ who was supposed to work _alongside_ him, not _below_ him.

Besides, Gavin was only trying to help, which was obviously why he'd put up with Ryan's piss-poor attitude for that long. In fact, Gavin probably would have put up with Ryan until the day of his departure - he was a persistent kid, Ryan would give him that. And he was patient. And tolerant. Fuck, he was a good guy really, he just had his own ways of dealing with Ryan's behaviour.

God fucking dammit. Ryan needed to talk to him, didn't he? Well, at least that was one thing Ryan was good at; talking to someone and calming everyone down after an argument. That and compromising.

He walked quietly through the hallways of the building, keeping his head down and sneaking past Michael and Ray's office. The last thing he needed was to be delayed by their antics or experiments. A few minutes later, he was rounding the corner and walking into the break room.

Unsurprisingly, only Gavin sat there, nursing a steaming mug of tea with his back mostly turned to the door.

Ryan wordlessly turned on the coffee machine - thanking the heavens when it actually _worked_ for once - then pulled out a seat, sitting down opposite Gavin who hadn't even looked up from his drink, let alone acknowledge Ryan's presence.

After taking a deep breath, Ryan focussed his gaze on Gavin's face, although it was obscured by his golden brown hair that had fallen forwards to cover his eyes. "Gavin, I'm sorry." He confessed, the words almost echoing around the otherwise empty room. But when Gavin made no move to react, he continued speaking. "I shouldn't have yelled at you and I shouldn't have gotten angry, it was a super shitty thing of me to do and... Oh_fuck_, you're probably wishing you were back home right now… God, I really fucked up, didn't I?"

Now it was Ryan's turn to stared into the dark depths of his drink as he avoided looking at Gavin.

"It's alright, Ryan. I know I haven't really been the most _useful_ of people recently and the thing is, I know how I _could_ help, I just never really acted on it 'cause I figured you'd pay attention to me more if I mucked around and made a bit of a joke of everything." His voice wasn't as upset or hurt as Ryan anticipated it would be, it was more self-deprecating and accepting than anything else.

"But I did notice your reaction to my jeans on Day 1 so I thought I'd wear them more often, and you _did mention_ that they were a distraction…" Gavin lifted his head, the corners of his lips quirking up in a smirk as he finally met Ryan's eyes.

"Is that _really_ all you were thinking about?" Ryan asked, finding no other words to express his disbelief at how _typical_ Gavin was.

Gavin chuckled, a genuine smile on his face for once as he took a small sip of his slightly cooler tea. "I knew you were just mad because of the pressure from your assignment and I knew I was only faffing about and not being entirely useful so it was only a matter of time before you snapped." He paused for a few seconds before smirking. "And _of course_ it's important to know that my arse looks amazing in skinny jeans."

"Yeah, it does." Ryan admitted with a faint trace of a blush on his cheeks. He nearly breathed a sigh of relief, glad that he could finally admit that he actually kinda had a bit of a thing for his crazy and attractive (and crazily attractive) British colleague - both to himself, and to Gavin. "But I really do need to finish my work for Monday."

"Don't worry Ry, I really will be useful this time, I promise." Gavin informed, standing up from the table. "We're gonna finish that presentation and it is gonna be _top._"

Ryan stood up too, extending his hand for Gavin to shake - which he did - and grinned when he wasn't even surprised that he felt _something_ just from the small contact.

Over the course of the next few days, Ryan and Gavin didn't think they'd consumed that much coffee, tea, and Red Bull in their entire lifetime. They worked extremely hard, Gavin actually being of use as he sourced out information for Ryan to piece together to work into his report and his presentation for Monday.

And when Friday morning finally rolled around, Ryan honestly believed he'd never seen Gavin look happier when he walked into the office with two cups in his hands; one of coffee for himself, and one of tea for Gavin. He'd actually bought it from Starbucks without even thinking, but with the way Gavin looked at him, almost questioning the fact that Ryan remembered how he liked his tea, Ryan made a mental note to do that more often.

It was Monday morning and Ryan was almost frozen with fear as he stood in front of Sorola, Burns, and numerous other scientists in the small auditorium, reading from his report and clicking through the slides on the powerpoint put together by himself and Gavin.

When he finally finished, the final slide leaving the screen black, Ryan breathed a sigh of relief after he finished answering questions and left the stage, nearly shaking with a mixture of relief, nerves and panic.

In no way soothing his nerves at all, he was immediately confronted with Burns and Sorola.

"Haywood, that was absolutely fantastic." Burns shook Ryan's hand and grinned at him widely. He was always the one Ryan preferred to talk to, Sorola was far more intimidating (and grumpy, but he'd never dare voice that opinion unless he was _looking_ to risk his job).

"Would it be possible for you to give us a copy of your report and presentation? I'm sure Professor Hullum would be pleased to see it, you definitely deserve _something_ for this. Even I've got to admit you did well." Sorola said, shaking Ryan's hand as well. Though his expression was mainly calm, he couldn't hide how impressed he was at Ryan's fulfillment of his assignment.

"O-of course. I'll email that to you right away." Ryan inwardly cursed himself for stumbling over his words, but when Sorola nodded and left, he actually _did_ sigh with relief.

"So, how's Doctor Free been?" Burns asked.

"He's been spectacular. I honestly couldn't have pulled this together without him and it's certainly been a unique experience working with him. It would be an honour to keep someone like Gavin in our facility." Ryan continued to ramble, crossing his fingers behind his back in hopes that Burns would allow Gavin to stay.

When Ryan finished rambling, Burns claimed he was going to speak to Dr Sorola about keeping Gavin in the facility, and he walked away, finally leaving Ryan alone.

He leant back against the wall of the corridor he stood in, just outside the auditorium, and closed his eyes for a few seconds. But when he heard footsteps that stopped just in front of him, Ryan opened his eyes.

"I uh… Kinda heard what you said." Gavin confessed, scuffing his shoes on the white linoleum on the floor. "You didn't have to do that."

"Gavin, my presentation was a huge success and I only have you to thank for it. After we both stopped dicking around we actually pulled something truly amazing together, I'm seriously impressed with how well you worked." Ryan said, smiling confidently at Gavin, still riding the high after his bout of nerves he gained during the presentation earlier.

"Thanks Ryan, I really do hope Burns will let me stay."

"Me too." Ryan agreed, smirking at Gavin. "But if anything, I should be thanking you. I wouldn't have produced work with _nearly_ that amount of quality if it weren't for you. Seriously Gavin, thank you."

Gavin looked speechless, and he evidently was, because instead of replying, he stepped forwards and wrapped his arms around Ryan in a warm hug. Ryan returned the embrace, relaxing into the comforting contact he was now allowed to relish in after the three weeks of hard work on his presentation.

Ryan pulled back a bit from Gavin, just enough so he could look into his eyes but not far enough so they had to let go of each other. "Would you perhaps like to go out for dinner?"

"As a date?" Gavin asked, the hint of a smile quirking the corners of his lips upwards, and Ryan's eyes were drawn to them.

"If you don't want it to be a date then it could simply be as a celebration, but it's really up to you-"

Gavin cut Ryan off mid-sentence, effectively shutting him up with a soft kiss pressed to his lips, lingering for a few seconds before pulling back.

"A date sounds lovely." Gavin confessed, letting his arms fall back to his sides as he stepped away from Ryan, almost regretting the loss of his warmth. "But for now, I've got a desk that needs tidying."

Both of them laughed as they walked down the few corridors to their shared office, their chuckling only returning when they entered the office and took in the abominational sight that was the almost unbelievable mess of Gavin's desk.

But the thing that kept them going when they got bored of stacking paper and throwing away empty cans of Red Bull was the fact that at 7pm when they were allowed to leave, Ryan would be driving them to the nice restaurant he knew down the road, uncaring that they hadn't changed their clothes since leaving work, more focussed on enjoying their first date about anything else but each other. Because they knew right off the bat that although this was their first date, there was certain to be many more.


End file.
